The Abandoned Railroad

Fields of summer wheat rusting in the sun.

The railroad has been abandoned now, but ever since the river dried up it is here the young lovers come in the evenings, dreaming of escape, imagining that these broken tracks may lead them somewhere.

Crows rise from the earth, fill the sky with warnings. Far away, on the new line, a locomotive puffs, its smoke rising in thought bubbles. Like the mind of a man trying to think of something to say.

Even if they tore these tracks up and took them away for the metal, it wouldn't help. Nothing would grow on this gravel, nothing would cover up this trail. It will always be here, a backbone of stone stretching across the landscape, like a grave, or a very hard bed.